How do you know there is nothing going on? Do you have proof? You are just making things up, or making wrong assumption.

I'm speaking of specific instances where listeners are presented with the exact same thing, but the listeners have some expectation of a difference. In those cases, listeners tend to perceive a difference in spite of nothing having changed. Expectation bias is a well known and well established phenomena and is one of the reasons that makes subjective listening alone unreliable. And that's why blind testing protocols have been developed in order to control for such biases.

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I suggest you re-read what has been said about burned-in cables as it is a good learning curve for you.

I've been involved in the high-end audio industry and have been designing and building cables for going on 30 years. I know what people have said about burned-in cables.

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Personal hands-on experience is first. Second is the reference from the engineers and professors that are specialized in this field.

Except in this case, all you have is a naive magazine writer cobbling together one big non sequitur because he has absolutely no understanding of the stuff he's parroting in an attempt to "prove" his case. In the end, it's just a bunch of gibberish.

After reading through this thread, I think I'm personally going to stop the quest to change people's mind. The argument goes both ways (to some people not to me), and everyone is choosing sides. I'm pretty sure this is never going to end, and it's not worth getting frustrated over, and definitely not worth arguing. No body is going to change sides in this argument. I thought I'd just throw my two cents in as I sign off trying to convince people one way or the other.

I have no doubts after hearing my burnt-in cable and a NIB one. Pretty noticeable difference, you don't need to have "golden ears" to notice it immediatelly. It's also so obvious that no blind test is needed.

I have no doubts after hearing my burnt-in cable and a NIB one. Pretty noticeable difference, you don't need to have "golden ears" to notice it immediatelly. It's also so obvious that no blind test is needed.

A blind test is needed precisely because it seems obvious. Blind testing is not to look for miniscule differences, it is to eliminate unconscious biases that can lead us to hear big differences when there is a very good chance that we really should not.

Now you know why se cracks me up. First one to dismiss and or discount but will not find out on his own to see if it happens or not. Se doesn't have proof to back up his claims that there is no "burn in" or what ever else he discount's.

He's probably afraid to hear the difference, like not wanting to find out what he is getting. And of course, in order to do that, he will have to pay a large sum of money on cables but I doubt he would even try...

I'm speaking of specific instances where listeners are presented with the exact same thing, but the listeners have some expectation of a difference. In those cases, listeners tend to perceive a difference in spite of nothing having changed. Expectation bias is a well known and well established phenomena and is one of the reasons that makes subjective listening alone unreliable. And that's why blind testing protocols have been developed in order to control for such biases.

What is the proof of being the two "exactly same thing" between burned-in and fresh outta the box cable? That is what I was questioning you. You haven't yet provided any proof of being the two exactly the same.

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Originally Posted by Steve Eddy

I've been involved in the high-end audio industry and have been designing and building cables for going on 30 years. I know what people have said about burned-in cables.

Good that you have some experience with audio system and have post counts. But should I rely on you or the engineers, scientists / professors who are deep in this field? Oh, and my own personal experience.

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Originally Posted by Steve Eddy

Except in this case, all you have is a naive magazine writer cobbling together one big non sequitur because he has absolutely no understanding of the stuff he's parroting in an attempt to "prove" his case. In the end, it's just a bunch of gibberish.

se

What good is your excuse when you can't even provide proof of burned-in cable and out of the box cable being exactly the same? Do they look the same outside? Yes.

What is the proof of being the two "exactly same thing" between burned-in and fresh outta the box cable? That is what I was questioning you. You haven't yet provided any proof of being the two exactly the same.

But your question had nothing to do with what I had actually said.

However to answer your question which had nothing I actually said anyway, some years ago I enlisted the help of Burno Putzeys to make some high resolution cable measurements. Among the cables that I sent him was one that had been in use for about five years and another was the same cable, unused, new right out of the box. There were simply no differences to be found. Even when looking down to -170dB.

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Good that you have some experience with audio system and have post counts. But should I rely on you or the engineers, scientists / professors who are deep in this field?

What engineers, scientists / professors who are deep in this field are you referring to exactly?

If you're referring to the "Quantum Tunnel of Love" article, it was written for a consumer audio magazine by a hack who didn't have a clue what he was talking about and misrepresented most everything he referenced as being relevant to an audio cable. It was a joke.

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Oh, and my own personal experience.

One's own personal experience doesn't necessarily prove anything with regard to what may or may not actually be going on with an audio cable. If it did, it would also prove that putting photographs of yourself in your freezer improves the sound of your audio system. Or do you believe in that as well?

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What good is your excuse when you can't even provide proof of burned-in cable and out of the box cable being exactly the same? Do they look the same outside? Yes.

And by the research that has been done so far, they perform the same electrically as well.

Now if you have some objective evidence to show that a burned-in cable behaves electrically different than the same cable out of the box, I would be happy to look at it.

We are just talking about "burn in" in this thread. Silver IC's with Silver connecters are a good example to use. They will sound different from NIB to about 300-500 of burn in. That is from experience in listening to them. Was not referring to sounding better or worse just stating that there is burn in.

+1 on cable "burn in".

I'm using silver ICs for my audio chain.

When I initially replaced my well used copper ICs with brand new silver ones, my entire audio system sounded like it had taken 10 steps backwards. Everything sounded overly compressed and just plain awful.

However, after about 200 hours of burn-in, not only did my silver ICs reach the same audio standards as my copper ICs, they surpassed the old copper ones at about 400hrs of burn-in.

However to answer your question which had nothing I actually said anyway, some years ago I enlisted the help of Burno Putzeys to make some high resolution cable measurements. Among the cables that I sent him was one that had been in use for about five years and another was the same cable, unused, new right out of the box. There were simply no differences to be found. Even when looking down to -170dB.

It may depend on the cables too. You probably sent him some cheap monoprice-grade cable. The difference may vary. Plus as mentioned earlier, there is no proof that measurements your friend attempted apply, or valid too. How do you know that measurement is the one and only best way to look for differences on cables? What equipments were used and what measurements were used?

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If you're referring to the "Quantum Tunnel of Love" article, it was written for a consumer audio magazine by a hack who didn't have a clue what he was talking about and misrepresented most everything he referenced as being relevant to an audio cable. It was a joke.

I'm talking from various articles from the audio engineers and professors, including the ones listed here in this thread. I would still trust from the engineers and professors, rather than some user who played with audio equipment for years and has a lot of post counts. No pun intended.

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One's own personal experience doesn't necessarily prove anything with regard to what may or may not actually be going on with an audio cable. If it did, it would also prove that putting photographs of yourself in your freezer improves the sound of your audio system. Or do you believe in that as well?

For me it was a clear difference. As I said before, it sounded harsh / edgy with my silver cable. Now, after 500- 600 hours there is smoother transition in the music.

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And by the research that has been done so far, they perform the same electrically as well.

What research? And of course the electricity will flow from point A to point B. We know that. But *how* does it get through the cable is the question, which was already mentioned here in the thread. The timing plays important role... You still can't prove the two cables being exactly the same. Not to mention no clue on what instruments and what method of measurements need to be used. Do you know what you are doing?

It may depend on the cables too. You probably sent him some cheap monoprice-grade cable.

Radio Shack "Gold" series to be precise.

But why should the price of the cables matter? What is it about cable burn-in that depends on the price? While more expensive cables may use arguably better materials, then shouldn't the effects of burn-in be the least noticeable in the more expensive cables and most notable in the less expensive cables?

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The difference may vary. Plus as mentioned earlier, there is no proof that measurements your friend attempted may not apply, or invalid too. How do you know that measurement is the only and best way to find out how the sound will be affected?

Because in order for the sound to be effected, there must be some difference in the way the burned-in cable affects the signal passing through it relative to the non-burned-in cable. And instruments allow for the measuring of those effects to levels far far below any human's ability to hear.

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What equipments were used and what measurements were used?

An Audio Precision System 2 Cascade. Measurements included harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, and phase distortion using single tone, multi-tone and multi-tone derived from music.

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I'm talking from various articles from the audio engineers and professors, including the ones listed here in this thread.

Ok. Could you cite one specifically, and more importantly the argument presented that would have any differences due to burn-in be of a magnitude that's at least greater than the thermal noise of the wire itself?

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I would still trust from the engineers and professors, rather than some user who played with audio equipment for years and has a lot of post counts.

So because I don't call myself an "engineer" or "professor," that somehow inherently makes my arguments less valid? What if I called myself "God"? Would that trump "engineer" and "professor"?

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For me it was a clear difference. As I said before, it sounded harshy / edgy with my silver cable. Now, after 500- 600 hours there is smoother transition in the music.

If it's a clear difference, then it should be trivially easy to demonstrate it. Nice thing about something like burn-in is that it lends itself very well to easily administered controlled listening tests. If you'd like to move over to the Sound Science forum, we could discuss the details.

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What research? And of course the electricity will flow from point A to point B. We know that. But *how* does it get through the cable is the question, which was already mentioned here in the thread. The timing plays important role...

How it gets through isn't so important. It's what happens to the signal between point A and point B. And unless you're going to suggest some supernatural means of signal transmission hitherto unknown, the signal is ultimately nothing more than a change in current and voltage over time. And we can measure changes in voltage and current over time to vanishingly low levels, both in the time domain and the frequency domain.